Bring Me To Life
by Lizwontcry
Summary: Damon has to wait a long, long time for the love of his life to wake up, but in the end, it will be worth it. Spoilers for the season 6 finale.


Damon heard her voice. All the time. In the wind, in the sun, in the rain. In his sleep. It was a permanent part of his consciousness now, and he wouldn't know what to do without it. Someday they'd be together again, but for now, he was drifting through his life, if you could even call it a life. Sure, he tried not to fall through the cracks; he tried not to live just for the moment she came back to him. But sometimes it got too hard, and all he wanted was to curl up in the casket with her and take a long, satisfying nap.

For a while, Damon was thankfully distracted by the darkness that settled over Mystic Falls like a haze. The heretics took over the town and turned it into a chaos that the Salvatores had never even experienced before in their time as vampires through the last century and a half. However, peace was restored eventually, and Damon had to finally confront the fact that it would be a long, long time before he could be with the love of his never-ending life. So he dusted himself off, got himself together, and bought the bar in the Midwest town with the apartment above it. He kind of kept in touch with his friends, made new friends, even a girlfriend or two-but of course they never lasted very long. Every now and then he'd treat himself to a drifter, because why not? Nobody was keeping tabs on him anymore. They gave him his distance. Everyone knew he'd come back eventually.

It was different when Damon was waiting for Katherine. The constant feeling of desperation often consumed him, and he went off the rails many, many times in her absence. But for Elena, he tried to be good. When her coma was over and she woke up, she'd want to know what he'd been doing in his life, and he would hate to disappoint her. He wanted to be able to tell Elena about all the things he experienced without her. So he went to Italy, Dubai, Scotland, Australia, Connecticut. He read things, he wrote things, he cooked things. He worked at his bar and learned the stories of countless strangers. Anything to pass the time. And really, what was 60 years in the whole scheme of things, right? No big deal. Except it was. It all passed by in an excruciating blur, and he would never remember any of it if he didn't write it all down in the diary like Elena requested. For her, he'd do it. For her, he'd do anything.

When Damon made his annual voyage to Mystic Falls, he'd always have a lovely but painful meal with Bonnie. Their friendship was complicated, of course. Bonnie knew and understood that Damon wished she would just die already, but she also knew and understood that he loved her in his own demented way. In the beginning, the first few years of Elena's coma, they would carefully avoid talking about her. But in the years that followed, they discussed it at great lengths. And when Bonnie eventually got married and had a few children, beautiful babies that would eventually grow up to be witches just like her, she would tell them all about Elena and what a great friend and amazing person she was. It was important to keep her alive in their thoughts. So important. Over the years, knowing that as long as she was living, Elena would not be...it became easier to comprehend, although it never stopped being a painful reality. It wasn't fair, but nothing in her life had been fair up to that point, anyway. She took comfort in the fact that Elena would know Bonnie's children, who were looking forward to someday meeting their "Aunt Elena."

Like Damon, Bonnie dutifully wrote down every significant moment in her diary so Elena could catch up. If nothing else, that's what Bonnie could do for her best friend.

Stefan and Caroline slowly and peacefully made a life for themselves, and they, too, kept their diaries. They both had intense moments of missing Elena and they had their own ways of grieving. In a way, the whole tragic situation is what brought them together for better or worse this time. It was complicated; Caroline knew Stefan's feelings for his ex-girlfriend were never really resolved, but she knew in her heart that it wasn't any kind of threat to their own relationship. Elena had Damon now, and Caroline had Stefan. They did, in fact, have a June wedding. Damon was there, all smiles to hide the emptiness inside of him. At least his brother could be happy.

Alaric grieved the loss of his almost-wife and baby and missed Elena like the rising sun. Life was hard, and it sucked, and he would often visit Damon at the bar where they'd drink themselves into oblivion. Alaric never sought out love again-he didn't have a good track record, after all. Isobel, Jenna, Jo...what was the point? Instead, he moved to a ranch in Texas where he raised dozens of golden retrievers. It was a life. Not the one he ever imagined, but it was something. He passed away before Elena rose from her coma, but Damon found his diary when he was going through his things. Alaric complained about keeping the diary all the time, but he did it because Elena asked him to. It was a depressing thought, but Alaric knew she was going to be devastated that he never found another soul mate. Damon assured him that Elena would understand.

The wind blew, the rain came down, the seasons changed, and Bonnie got sick. She was a grandmother, an old woman who already had plenty of life experiences. It was her kids' time now. It was Elena's time now. So when Damon got the call to come to her bedside, he ran. He defied all logical rules of space and time to get to Bonnie. Not just because he'd been counting the seconds until Elena woke up for an eternity, but because Bonnie was his friend. Maybe his best friend.

In Mystic Falls, Bonnie was surrounded by friends and family. She was a proud matriarch now. Her husband Oliver, whom she met in college and had now been married to for nearly 50 years, held her hand, trying not to cry, trying to be strong for her. Damon hugged him, and Oliver wrangled all the kids so Damon and Bonnie could have a moment alone together.

Bonnie smiled when she saw Damon by her bedside. In her weaker moments during her sickness, Bonnie became particularly bitter about the fact that, once she took her last breath, Elena would wake up and start over. She knew that even though she and Damon were very close, he would not be there to grieve for her when it was over. Damon knew that was a particularly harsh reality for Bonnie to face. But now, as the illness took over her body and it was understood she had days, maybe even hours left, Bonnie smiled at her old friend Damon.

"Tell her that I had a good life," Bonnie managed to say. "Tell her that it's her turn. And that I missed her every single day."

"I will," Damon said, trying to bite back the inevitable tears. "I only wish you could tell her yourself."

"Someday I will," Bonnie said sadly. "Someday." Damon didn't really know what she meant by that, but maybe she had a plan. Maybe not. Maybe she was just, in her last moments, thinking about what awaited her in the great beyond.

"Love you, Bon," Damon said. "Get some rest."

Bonnie smiled. "Love you, too. You're a good man, Damon. Thank you for not killing me."

The two of them shared a somber laugh. Damon kissed her forehead and walked away from his friend, knowing that her death wasn't meaningless; that it would give life to someone else.

Damon went directly to the crypt from Bonnie's house. There she was, just like she'd been since the day she lost consciousness, like some kind of Sleeping Beauty or something. Damon opened the coffin and sat down to wait. He didn't know how it was supposed to work-would Elena rise as soon as Bonnie took her last breath, or was there some kind of waiting period while the paperwork for the curse was processed? He didn't know, but he had all day. Month. Year. Lifetime. He knew Stefan and Caroline wanted to see her as soon as possible, but they kept their distance. This was Damon's moment, and they wanted him to have it.

Damon didn't sleep or eat or even move, really. He sat in a chair next to the coffin and watched. There's no way to know how much time passed; he didn't have a way to track it. Part of him also worried that this was all a trick; Kai had been just kidding after all this time and Elena would be dead forever. Damon had no idea what he would do if this were the case. But thankfully...it wasn't.

At first, Elena's eyelid started twitching. Damon's stomach dropped like he was on the tallest roller coaster. It was happening. This was really, truly happening. A while later-too long for Damon's tastes-she groaned. Just to make things interesting and terrifying, Elena's body convulsed a number of times before settling back down. And finally, finally Elena opened her eyes. The first words out of her mouth, before she could even see or sit up or move, were "Damon?!"

Damon exhaled, and reached down quickly to hold her hand. "It's me, Elena, I'm here. I'm here. You're okay."

Elena fought to open her eyes, and when she did, it was the most beautiful sight Damon had ever seen. She still looked like the young woman he fell in love with, even after so many years of laying dead to the world. Her dark eyes were like the home he was waiting to return to all these years. He could live in them forever.

"Oh, Damon," she said happily, and managed to somehow sit up. Damon knew there'd be some hard times in their future. They would have to get to know each other again, and Elena would be in for some tough times after realizing her non-vampire loved ones were either really, really old or dead, but he was ready. He was ready for anything.

Damon tentatively went in for a kiss, hoping her lips would meet his, and they did. Her lips were exactly the same as he remembered—or maybe they weren't, but he didn't even notice. Oh, he missed this. He missed everything about Elena, the good and the bad, and he wanted to spend an eternity with her in his arms. But...they didn't even have eternity. Elena was a human, and who knows what could happen to her, and when. They had a limited time together, and then...she'd be gone, and Damon would be alone yet again. Unless...Kai said that Elena would be completely preserved from the moment she fell into the coma, so presumably she still had the cure in her system. Which meant, by all accounts, that Damon could very easily take some of the cure, too. And then they could hopefully enjoy a long, happy life together, and then let the wind take them away together. But...that was a conversation they weren't ready to have just yet. Soon, though. Very soon.

When they released each other from the kiss, it occurred to Elena how this came to pass. "Oh, Bonnie," she said, wiping away a tear. "Was she in a lot of pain?"

Damon loved that Elena cared so much about her friends.

"No, not in the end. She was surrounded by all her loved ones. You can read about it," he said, pointing to the stack of diaries he had placed in the floor.

Elena smiled. "That's good. I can't wait to catch up on everything. But first...take me home," she said. "Take me to your home."

" _Our_ home," Damon said gently. "And we'll get there soon. You'll love it, I promise. But for tonight, we'll go to the boarding house."

"Oh, good," Elena whispered. "Are there going to be a lot of people waiting for us?" He couldn't tell if she looked hopeful or disappointed.

"No. Just us tonight," Damon said. "Just us, as long as you want it to be."

"Good, because I want to be alone. With you."

"I want that, too," Damon said, his heart beating rapidly. Even though he'd been through a lot of crap in his life, this moment...this moment was what made it all worth it. Finally he could be with the woman he loved, the woman who loved him. Finally there would be no more obstacles. Finally.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Let's go," Elena said, smiling. Damon didn't have to be told twice. He picked her up and carried her to his car, where he drove to the house in a daze, barely able to take his eyes off of her even for a second. At home, Damon carried her into the bedroom, and everything went dark. There was a lot to consider, a lot to talk about, a lot to come to terms with, but that would happen eventually. For now, they had each other, and they were going to make it count.


End file.
